Quotes from Rachel Caine

She'd never really been afraid of the dark, but dark wasn't really dark most of the time.... There were stars, moonlight, distant streetlights. This was pitch-black, take-no-prisoners dark, and she had the ice-cold feeling that anything could be right next to her, reaching out for her, and she'd never see it coming.

Marjo's, like Oliver's Common Grounds, was a place where the two halves of Morganville had a kind of unofficial truce. Besides, who didn't like hamburgers? Vegetarians, Claire supposed. But she didn't think there were any vegetarian vampires. That would be like an atheist priest.

You, Monica said, leaning over her, really pissed me off, fish. I don't forget things like that. Neither does my boyfriend. Brandon? Claire wheezed. Jeez, at least get one with a pulse!

Because we're all stupid and insecure and think that we're never, ever good enough.

Anger is as poisonous as arsenic, and it rots you from the bones out.

You don't just have ink in your blood. It's in your bones. Your skeleton's black with it.

You know, sweetheart, the thing I most regret is that we never got to have that house by the lake that you and I talked about so often. It sounds like paradise, doesn't it? I can almost see it, you sitting on the porch in the moonlight, watching the lake at night. That image gives me peace. I hope you're not sharing it with anyone else but me.

It might be called denial by some, but in that moment I thought it was the very strength that made humanity so successful… the ability to transcend reality, to create reality around them, even for a moment

Think of it this way: alchemists of old relied on the energy provided by tides, the moon, sun, planets in alignment. Every experiment was delicate and had to be balanced just so, or there couldn't be a proper result. Obscurists have an inborn talent to provide that energy from within and not from the world around us; we are born with quintessence.

He also knows that a gun can't protect you unless you protect yourself mentally, emotionally, and logically. It's the punctuation at the end, not the paragraph.

Power holds always the hidden edge of threat.

need to remember my failures as much as my successes; they teach me to think harder about the risks I'm taking. Because not all those risks are mine.

It's almost like rising to the highest levels of power comes with a side order of sociopathy—who could have seen that coming?

Some say that women should not read, for they may be led astray into impurity, as if our women are not fit guardians of their own worthiness.

Archimedes taught that of all the five elements, quintessence is the most rare, the most valuable, the one that transmutes the ordinary into the extraordinary. We are quintessence. It's a divine gift, and like all gifts, we must use it for the Library's greater glory.

Yeah, well, things happen; you can't always predict what comes next.

Crepi il lupo. Kill the wolf.

hate has a life of its own.

It takes a while. Slowly, almost imperceptibly over

The vampires did make sounds then, as their quarry started to flee - little whispers, laughs, strange hisses, all kinds of creepy noises that made the skin on the back of Claire's neck tighten up.

It is a terrible arrogance to think that there are any of humankind who are better or worse, or worthy or not. It comes of a pitiful need to believe in one's own worth when one is hollow within. We are all worthy. And none of us are, all at once. Once that is acknowledged, that hollow, howling space may be filled with understanding. But so many cling to their emptiness, and I fear that they may yet prevail.

Eve: Yo! Mocha! Oliver: Yo. I am not your waitress.

Archimedes said mathematics reveal its secrets only to those who approach it with pure love for its own beauty. But the Archivist has no love for knowledge. He wants only power. You are the club he swings to get it.

It's an excuse to let their vilest impulses out to play.